Coordinates	°′″N°′″N
Official name	Beirut
Native name	بيروت Bayrūt
Other name	Beyrouth (French)
City motto	BERYTUS NUTRIX LEGUM (latin)
Image seal	BlasonBeyrouth4.jpg
Map caption	Location in Lebanon. The surrounding district can be seen on the map.
Pushpin map	Lebanon
Pushpin mapsize	300
Coordinates region	LB
Subdivision type	Country
Subdivision type1	Governorate
Subdivision name
Subdivision name1	Beirut, Capital City
Leader title	Mayor
Leader name	Bilal Hamad
Area total km2	20
Area urban km2	100
Area metro km2	200
Population total	750000
Population urban	1900000
Population metro	2250000 ~ 3000000
Timezone	+2
Timezone dst	+3
Latitude	33°53' N
Longitude	35°30' E
Website	City of Beirut

Beirut (, Bayrūt) is the capital and largest city of Lebanon with a population ranging from some 1 million to over 2 million as of 2007. Located on a peninsula at the midpoint of Lebanon's coastline with the Mediterranean sea, it serves as the country's largest and main seaport, and also forms the Beirut Metropolitan Area, which consists of the city and its suburbs. The first mention of this metropolis is found in the ancient Egyptian Tell el Amarna letters, dating to the 15th century BC, and the city has been continuously inhabited since.

Beirut holds Lebanon's seat of government, and plays a central role in the Lebanese economy with its city centre, Hamra, Verdun, and Ashrafieh-based corporate firms and banks. The city is the focal point of the region's cultural life, renowned for its press, theatres, cultural activities, and nightlife. After the destructive Lebanese civil war, Beirut underwent major reconstruction, and the redesigned historic city centre, marina, pubs and nightlife districts have once again rendered it a tourist attraction. Beirut was named the top place to visit in 2009 by The New York Times. It was also listed as one of the ten liveliest cities in the world by Lonely Planet in 2009.

History

Beirut's history goes back more than 5000 years. Excavations in the downtown area have unearthed layers of Phoenician, Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine, Arab, Crusader and Ottoman remains. The first historical reference to Beirut dates from the 14th century BC, when it is mentioned in the cuneiform (Beirut) sent three letters to the pharaoh of Egypt. Biruta is also referenced in the letters from Rib-Hadda of Byblos. The most ancient settlement was on an island in the river that progressively silted up. The city was known in antiquity as Berytus, this name was taken in 1934 for the archaeological journal published by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at the American University of Beirut.

Hellenistic/Roman period

In 140 BC, the city was destroyed by Diodotus Tryphon in his contest with Antiochus VII Sidetes for the throne of the Seleucid monarchy. Beirut was soon rebuilt on a more regularized Hellenistic plan, renamed Laodicea in Phoenicia () or Laodicea in Canaan, in honor of a Seleucid Laodice. The modern city overlies the ancient one and little archaeology had been accomplished until after the end of the civil war in 1991; now large sites in the devastated city center have been opened to archaeological exploration. A dig in 1994 established that one of Beirut's modern streets, Souk Tawile, still follows the lines of an ancient Hellenistic and Roman one.

Mid-first century coins of Berytus bear the head of Tyche, goddess of fortune; on the reverse, the city's symbol appears: a dolphin entwines an anchor. This symbol was taken up by the early printer Aldus Manutius in 15th century Venice. Beirut was conquered by Agrippa in 64 BC and the city was renamed in honor of the emperor's daughter, Julia; its full name became Colonia Julia Augusta Felix Berytus. The veterans of two Roman legions were established in the city: the fifth Macedonian and the third Gallic. The city quickly became Romanized. Large public buildings and monuments were erected and Berytus enjoyed full status as a part of the empire.

Under the Romans, it was enriched by the dynasty of Herod the Great, and was made a colonia, Colonia Iulia Augusta Felix Berytus, in 14 BC. Beirut's school of law was widely known at the time. Two of Rome's most famous jurists, Papinian and Ulpian, both natives of Phoenicia, taught at the law school under the Severan emperors. When Justinian assembled his Pandects in the 6th century, a large part of the corpus of laws were derived from these two jurists, and Justinian recognized the school as one of the three official law schools of the empire (533). Within a few years, as the result of a disastrous earthquake (551), the students were transferred to Sidon. About 30,000 were killed in Berytus alone and, along the Phoenician coast, total casualties were close to 250,000. It was ruled by the Arslan family (descendants of the Lakhmids) for 477 years (635 - 1110). "Prince Arslan bin al-Mundhir" founded the Principality of Sin-el-Fil in 759 AD in Beirut. This Principality was the base of the afterwards "Principality of Mount Lebanon" who was the base of the establishment of "Greater Lebanon" (Lebanon today). As a trading centre of the eastern Mediterranean, Beirut was overshadowed by Akka during the Middle Ages. From 1110 to 1291 it was in the hands of the Crusaders Kingdom of Jerusalem. John of Ibelin, the Old Lord of Beirut (1179–1236) rebuilt the city after the battles with Saladin, and also built the Ibelin family palace in Beirut. One of these, Fakr ed-Din Maan II, fortified it early in the 17th century, but the Ottomans retook it in 1763. Beirut began its revival. - circa 1930]]

By the second half of the nineteenth century, Beirut was in the process of developing close commercial and political ties with European imperial powers, France in particular. European interests in Lebanese silk and other export products transformed the city into a major port and commercial centre. Meanwhile, Ottoman power in the region continued to decline. Sectarian and religious conflicts, power vacuums, and changes in the political dynamics of the region culminated in the 1860 Lebanon conflict. Beirut became a destination for Maronite Christian refugees fleeing from the worst areas of the fighting on Mount Lebanon and in Damascus. This in turn altered the ethnic composition of Beirut itself, sowing the seeds of future ethnic and religious troubles there and in greater Lebanon. However, Beirut was able to prosper in the meantime. This was again a product of European intervention, and also a general realization amongst the city's residents that commerce, trade, and prosperity depended on domestic stability.

In 1888, Beirut was made capital of a vilayet in Syria, including the sanjaks Latakia, Tripoli, Beirut, Akka and Bekaa. By this time, Beirut had grown into a very cosmopolitan city, and had close links with Europe and the United States. Beirut also became a centre of missionary activity that spawned impressive educational institutions, such as the American University of Beirut. Provided with water from a British company and gas from a French one, silk exports to Europe came to dominate the local economy. After French engineers established a modern harbor (1894) and a rail link across Lebanon to Damascus, and then to Aleppo (1907), much of the trade was carried by French ships to Marseille. French influence in the area soon exceeded that of any other European power. In 1911, the population mix was reported in the Encyclopædia Britannica as Muslims, 36,000; Christians, 77,000; Jews, 2500; Druze, 400; foreigners, 4100.

Modern era

that separated west and east Beirut, 1982]] After the collapse of the Ottoman Empire following World War I Beirut, along with the rest of Lebanon, was placed under the French Mandate. After Lebanon achieved independence in 1943, Beirut became its capital city. It remained an intellectual capital of the Arab world and quickly became a financial centre for much of the Arab world and major tourist destination. This era of relative prosperity ended in 1975 when the Lebanese Civil War broke out throughout the country. During most of the war, Beirut was divided between a Muslim west part and the Christian east. The downtown area, previously the home of much of the city's commercial and cultural activities, became a no man's land known as the "Green Line." Many inhabitants fled to other countries. Thousands of others were killed throughout the war, and much of the city was devastated. A particularly destructive period was the 1982 Israeli invasion, during which most of West Beirut was under siege by Israeli troops. In 1983, French and U.S. barracks were bombed by Hezbollah, killing 241 American servicemen.

Since the end of the war in 1990, the people of Lebanon have been rebuilding Beirut, and by the start of the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict the city had somewhat regained its status as a tourist, cultural, and intellectual centre in the Middle East, as well as a centre for commerce, fashion, and media. Reconstruction of downtown Beirut has been largely driven by Solidere, a development company established in 1994 by Rafik Hariri. Beirut is home to the international designer Elie Saab, jeweller Robert Moawad, and to some popular satellite television stations, such as OTV, Al Manar TV, LBC, Future TV, New TV and others. The city was host to the Asian Club Basketball Championship and the Asian Football Cup. Beirut also successfully hosted the Miss Europe pageant eight times, 1960–1964, 1999, 2001–2002.

The 2005 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri near the Saint George Bay in Beirut shook the entire country. Approximately one million people gathered for an opposition rally in Beirut, a month after the death of Hariri. The "Cedar Revolution" was the largest rally in Lebanon's history at that time. The last Syrian troops withdrew from Beirut on 26 April 2005. The two countries established diplomatic relations on 15 October 2008. During the 2006 Lebanon War, however, Israeli bombardments seeking Hezbollah targets resulted in damage in many parts of Beirut, especially the poorer and largely Shiite South Beirut, which is controlled by Hezbollah. In May 2008, violent clashes broke out in Beirut, after the government decided to disband Hezbollah's network of communications (which it later rescinded), between the government allies that were relocated in the capital and the forces of the opposition briefly before handing it over to the control of the Lebanese Army.

In the aftermath of these events, all clashing parties travelled to the Qatari capital, Doha, in a national dialogue conference after an invitation from the prince of the country. On the conclusion of the meeting, many decisions were reached, the appointment of a new president of the country, and the establishment of a new national government with all the political adversaries involved. As a result the opposition's camp in the capital was removed, something underlined in the Doha Agreement.

Geography

)]] Beirut is positioned on a peninsula extending westward into the Mediterranean Sea, about north of the Lebanon-Israel border. The city is flanked by the Lebanon mountains; it has taken on a triangular shape, largely influenced by its situation between and atop two hills: Al-Ashrafieh and Al-Musaytibah. The Beirut Governorate area is of , and the city's metropolitan area is of . |date=August 2010 }}

Quarters and sectors

Beirut is divided into 12 municipality recognized quarters (quartiers):

Achrafieh

Dar El Mreisse

Bachoura

Mazraa

Medawar

Minet El Hosn

Moussaitbeh

Port Beirut

Ras Beirut

Rmeil

Saifi

Zoukak El Blatt

These quarters are divided into sectors (secteurs).

Three of the twelve official Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon are located in Beirut: Burj el-Barajneh, Shatila and Mar Elias refugee camp, all located in the south of the city. Of the fifteen unregistered or unofficial refugee camps, Sabra, which lies adjacent to Shatila, is also located in Beirut.

Demographics

There are wide-ranging estimates of Beirut's population, from as low as 938,940 people, to 1,303,129 people, to as high as 2,012,000. The lack of an exact figure is due to the fact that no population census has been taken in Lebanon since 1932.

sit side by side in Beirut's central district]] Beirut is the most religiously diverse city of Lebanon and all of the Middle East, with a significant presence of both Christians and Muslims. There are nine major religious communities in Beirut (Maronite Catholic, Greek Orthodox, Greek Catholic, Armenian Apostolic, Armenian Catholic, Protestant, Sunni Muslim, Shiite Muslim, Druze). Family matters such as marriage, divorce and inheritance are still handled by the religious authorities representing a person's faith (the "millet" system). Calls for civil marriage are unanimously rejected by the religious authorities but civil marriages held in another country are recognized by Lebanese civil authorities. Until the mid-20th century, Beirut was also home to a Jewish community in the Wadi Abu Jamil neighbourhood in the Bab Idriss sector of Zokak el-Blat. See History of the Jews in Lebanon.

Before the civil war the neighborhoods of Beirut were fairly heterogeneous, but they have become largely segregated by religion since the conflict. East Beirut is characterized by a largely Christian population, with a small Muslim minority. Meanwhile, West Beirut is categorized by a Muslim majority with a sizeable minority of Christians and Druze. Since the end of the civil war, East and West Beirut have begun to see an increase in Sunni Muslims and Christians moving into each half. Beirut's southern suburbs are largely populated by Shi'ite Muslims, while Beirut's Eastern suburbs are largely Christian. Northern Beirut has had and continues to have a large Lebanese Protestant community since the 19th century.

Economy

The economy of Beirut is diverse, ranging from publishing, banking, trade to a diverse industry. From the 1950s to the start of the conflict in 1975, Beirut was the region's financial services center. At the onset of the oil boom starting in the 1960s, Lebanon-based banks were the main recipients of the region's petrodollars.Middle East Airlines has its head office in Beirut. The Banque du Liban (The Central Bank Of Lebanon) is headquartered in Beirut.

Government

The capital Beirut is the seat of the Lebanese Parliament and of the government, and encompasses all the Ministries, most of the public administrations, embassies and consulates. Beirut is one of six mohafazat (state governorates; mohafazah, singular), with the others being Beqaa, North Lebanon, South Lebanon, Mount Lebanon and Nabatiye.

International organizations

The city is home to numerous international organizations. The United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA) is headquartered in Downtown Beirut while the International Labour Organization (ILO) and UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) both have regional offices in Beirut covering the Arab world. The Arab Air Carriers Organization (AACO) is also headquartered in Beirut.

Education

Higher education in Beirut, and all over Lebanon, is provided by technical and vocational institutes, university colleges, university institutes and universities. Among these numbers of institutions nationwide, the Lebanese University is the only public institution in the capital. The responsibility of the Directorate General of Higher Education is responsible for managing the university colleges, university Institutes and Universities in Beirut and nationwide. the Collège Protestant Français, the Lycée Franco-Libanais Verdun, the Collège du Sacré-Coeur Gemmayzé, the Grand Lycée Franco-Libanais, the Collège Notre Dame de Nazareth, the Armenian Evangelical Central High School And The German School of Beirut.

The higher education system is based on the Lebanese Baccalaureate but the French Baccalaureate is accepted as an equivalent. Before being admitted to any higher education institution, one must achieve his or her Baccalaureate examinations. Baccalaureate technique is an alternative to credentials. Beirut is home to the Lebanese American University which is Chartered by the Board of Regents of the University of the State of New York and fully accredited by the NEASC. LAU also offers the only PharmD program outside the US that is fully accredited by the Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education as well as an architecture degree equivalent to the French DEA allowing graduates to practice in the European Union, and is in the process of securing ABET and European accreditation for the School of Engineering with all its programs. Other universities in Beirut include the American University of Beirut, University of Balamand (Faculty of Health Sciences), Université Saint-Joseph, and Ecole Supérieure des Affaires.

Transportation

The city's renovated airport is the Rafic Hariri International Airport and is located in the southern suburbs. By land, the latter are served by either service taxi or taxicab. Service taxis are cheaper than normal taxis, but to avoid misunderstandings, an agreement over pricing needs to be made before setting off. On the other hand, the publicly owned buses are managed by Office des Chemins de Fer et des Transports en Commun (OCFTC), or the "Railway and Public Transportation Authority" in English. Buses for northern destinations and Syria leave from Charles Helou Station.

Apart from the international airport, the Port of Beirut is another port of entry. As a final destination, Lebanon can be reached by ferry from Cyprus or by road from Damascus.

Culture

The culture of Beirut has evolved under the influence of many different peoples and civilizations, such as Greeks, Romans, Arabs, Ottoman Turks and French, among others. The law school in downtown Beirut was one of the world's earliest and was considered to be a leading center of legal studies in the Eastern Roman Empire. All in all, the ruins of downtown Beirut have been found to contain seven layers of civilization. This history of cosmopolitanism is a point of pride for many Lebanese.

Beirut hosted the Francophonie and the Arab League summits in 2002. In 2007, Beirut hosted the ceremony for Le Prix Albert Londres, which rewards outstanding Francophone journalists every year. The city also hosted the Jeux de la Francophonie in 2009. In 2009, Beirut was proclaimed World Capital of the Book by UNESCO.

Beirut has also been called the "party capital of the Arab world". Monot Street had an international reputation among clubbers before political violence stymied its reputation. However new districts such as Gemmayze and Mar Mikhael have emerged as new hotspots for bar patrons and clubbers.

Museums

The National Museum of Beirut is the principal museum of archaeology in Lebanon. About 1,300 artifacts are exhibited, ranging in date from prehistoric times to the medieval Mamluk period. The American University of Beirut (AUB) archaeological museum is the third oldest museum in the Middle East, exhibiting a wide range of artifacts from Lebanon and neighboring countries. Sursock Museum was built by the Sursock family at the end of the 19th century as a private villa. It was then donated to the Lebanese state and now houses Beirut's most influential and popular art museum. The permanent collection shows a collection of Japanese engravings and numerous works of Islamic art, and temporary exhibitions are shown throughout the year. Robert Mouawad Private Museum exhibits Henri Pharaon's private archaeology and antiques collection, located near Beirut's the Grand Serail. Planet Discovery is a children’s science museum with interactive experiments, exhibitions, performances and workshops and awareness competitions.

Media

Beirut is the main center in Lebanon for the television, newspaper, and book publishing industries. The television stations include Tele Liban, LBC, Future TV, OTV (Orange TV), MTV , New TV, Al-Manar, ANB, and NBN. The newspapers include An-Nahar, As-Safir, Al Mustaqbal, Al Akhbar, Al-Balad, Ad-Diyar, Al Anwar, Al Sharq, L'Orient Le Jour and the Daily Star. Beirut is one of the main media hubs in the Arab world, the others being Cairo, Dubai, and Manamah.

Sports

Beirut, in addition to Sidon and Tripoli, hosted the 2000 AFC Asian Cup. There are two stadiums in the city, Camille Chamoun Sports City Stadium and Beirut Municipal Stadium.

Basketball is the most popular sport in Lebanon. Currently four teams playing in the Lebanese Basketball League div. 1 are located in Beirut. Best two teams in Lebanese Basketball history : Sagesse and Sporting Al Riyadi Beirut in addition of Hoops Club] and Antranik SC.

Other sports events in Beirut include the annual Beirut Marathon, Hip ball, a weekly horse racing at Beirut Hippodrome, and golf and tennis tournaments that take place at Golf Club of Lebanon.

Recently Beirut has taken to rugby league as well, with three out of the five teams in the Lebanon Championship based in Beirut.

Arts and fashion

There are hundreds of art galleries in Beirut and its suburbs. Lebanese people are very involved in art and art production. More than 5000 fine art artists and equal artists working in music, design, architecture, theatre, film, photography and other forms of art are producing in Lebanon. Every year hundreds of fine art students graduate from universities and institutions. Artist workshops exist all over Lebanon.

Recently, the inauguration of the Beirut Art Center in the Jisr El Wati district of Beirut added to the number of exhibition spaces available in Beirut, with an addition of a screening and performance room, mediatheque, bookstore, cafe and terrace.

On another scale, fashion and couture are thriving Fashion houses are opening up and a number of international fashion designers have displayed their work in various fashion shows.

Most major fashion labels have shops in Beirut, but the city is also home to a number of local fashion designers, some of whom have reached international fame and success. These include Elie Saab, Zuhair Mrad, Jean Faris, and Abed Mahfouz.

Tourism

Beirut is destination for tourists from both the Arab world and West. The once destroyed city centre is thriving once again. Its former reputation as a crossroads between three continents and gateway to the East has been restored. Beirut is one of several so called “Paris[es] of the East”, and there is plenty of sightseeing, shopping, cuisine, and nightlife to keep a tourist within the city limits. The city has sleek, modern buildings alongside arabesque Ottoman buildings, giving Beirut a unique and distinctive style often not seen in other Middle Eastern cities.

In Travel + Leisure magazine's World Best Awards 2006, Beirut was ranked 9th best city in the world. However, the list was voted upon before the war broke out in Lebanon that same year. Tourist numbers have increased exponentially these last few months. Recently, Lonely Planet named Beirut as ranking in its 2009 top ten liveliest cities on the planet. The New York Times ranked Beirut as the number one place to go in 2009 on its "44 places to go" list of 2009.

International relations

Twin towns – Sister cities

Beirut is twinned with: Amman, Jordan Baghdad, Iraq Istanbul, Turkey Kuwait City, Kuwait Lyon, France Marseille, France

See also

Beirut International Exhibition & Leisure Center

References

Bibliography

Kassir, Samir. Beirut (University of California Press; 2010) a scholarly history

Linda Jones Hall, Roman Berytus: Beirut in Late Antiquity, 2004.

Samir Kassir, Histoire de Beyrouth, Fayard 2003.

Richard Talbert, Barrington Atlas of the Greek and Roman World, (ISBN 0-691-03169-X), p. 69.

Rabih Alameddine, "", Abacus 1998, a novel

Notes

External links

Official website of Beirut

Beirut City Guide

Downtown Beirut Guide

Category:Beirut Category:Amarna letters locations Category:Ancient cities Category:Ancient Greek sites in Lebanon Category:Ancient mints Category:Archaeological sites in Lebanon Category:Capitals in Asia Category:Populated places in the Beirut Governorate Category:Populated coastal places in Lebanon Category:Crusades Category:Hellenistic colonies Category:Mediterranean Category:Mediterranean port cities and towns in Lebanon Category:Phoenician cities Category:Phoenician sites in Lebanon Category:Roman colonies Category:Roman sites in Lebanon Category:Populated places established in the 3rd millennium BC

Coordinates	°′″N°′″N
Name	Robert Fisk
Caption	Robert Fisk at a book festival in Christchurch, New Zealand in 2008.
Birth date	July 12, 1946
Birth place	Maidstone, Kent, England
Education	Lancaster University (B.A., 1968)Trinity College, Dublin (Ph.D., 1985)
Occupation	Middle East correspondent for The Independent
Ethnicity	British
Credits	Jacob's Award, Amnesty International UK Press Awards, British Press Awards, International Journalist of the Year, "Reporter of the Year", David Watt prize, Lannan Cultural Freedom Prize
Url	http://www.independent.co.uk/news/fisk/

Robert Fisk (born 12 July 1946) is an English writer and journalist from Maidstone, Kent.

Middle East correspondent of the The Independent, he has primarily been based in Beirut for more than 30 years. He has published a number of books and has reported from the United States's attack on Afghanistan and the same country's 2003 invasion of Iraq.

Fisk holds more British and International Journalism awards than any other foreign correspondent.

Career

The New York Times once described Robert Fisk as "probably the most famous foreign correspondent in Britain." He reported the Northern Ireland troubles in the 1970s, the Portuguese Revolution in 1974, the Lebanese Civil War, the Iranian revolution in 1979, the Soviet war in Afghanistan, the Iran–Iraq War, the Gulf War and the invasion of Iraq in 2003. A vernacular Arabic speaker, he is one of few Western journalists to have interviewed Osama bin Laden, and did so three times between 1994 and 1997. His awards include being voted International Journalist of the Year seven times.

Fisk has said that journalism must, "challenge authority, all authority, especially so when governments and politicians take us to war." He has quoted with approval the Israeli journalist Amira Hass: "There is a misconception that journalists can be objective ... What journalism is really about is to monitor power and the centres of power."

He has written at length on how much of contemporary conflict has its origin, in his view, in lines drawn on maps: "After the allied victory of 1918, at the end of my father's war, the victors divided up the lands of their former enemies. In the space of just seventeen months, they created the borders of Northern Ireland, Yugoslavia and most of the Middle East. And I have spent my entire career—in Belfast and Sarajevo, in Beirut and Baghdad—watching the people within those borders burn."

Fisk is a pacifist and has never voted.

Early career

Fisk was educated at Sutton Valence School and at Lancaster University and has a PhD in Political Science, from Trinity College, Dublin in 1983. The title of his doctoral thesis was "A condition of limited warfare: Éire’s neutrality and the relationship between Dublin, Belfast and London, 1939–1945". From 1972–75, the height of The Troubles, Fisk served as Belfast correspondent for The Times, before becoming its correspondent in Portugal covering the aftermath of the Carnation Revolution. He then was appointed Middle East correspondent (1976–1988). When a story of his was spiked (Iran Air Flight 655) after Rupert Murdoch's takeover, he moved to The Independent, with his first report published there on 28 April 1989.

Lebanon, and other conflicts

Fisk has been living in Beirut since 1976, and was present in Beirut throughout the Lebanese civil war. He was one of the first journalists to visit the scene of the Sabra and Shatila massacre in Lebanon, as well as the Syrian Hama Massacre. His book on the Lebanese conflict, Pity the Nation, was first published in 1990. Fisk also reported on the Arab-Israeli conflict, the Kosovo war, the Algerian civil war, and the Iran-Iraq War. Fisk suffered partial but permanent hearing loss as a result of his being within close proximity to Iraqi heavy artillery in the Shatt-al-Arab when covering the early stages of the Iran-Iraq conflict.

Osama bin Laden

Fisk is one of the few Western journalists to have interviewed Osama bin Laden - three times (all published by The Independent: December 6, 1993, July 10, 1996, and March 22, 1997). During one of Fisk's interviews with Bin Laden, Fisk noted an attempt by Bin Laden to convert him. Bin Laden said; "Mr Robert, one of our brothers had a dream. He dreamed ... that you were a spiritual person ... this means you are a true Muslim." Fisk replied; "Sheikh Osama, I am not a Muslim ... I am a journalist ... A journalist's task is to tell the truth." Bin Laden replied: "If you tell the truth, that means you are a good Muslim."

On the last occasion, in 1997, Osama informed Fisk of his intention to attack America: "Mr Robert, I pray that God permits us to turn America into a shadow of itself."

September 11 attacks

Fisk condemned the September 11, 2001 attacks, describing them as a "hideous crime against humanity." He also denounced the Bush administration's response to the attacks, arguing that "a score of nations" were being identified and positioned as "haters of democracy" or "kernels of evil," and urged a more honest debate on U.S. policy in the Middle East. He argued that such a debate had hitherto been avoided "because, of course, to look too closely at the Middle East would raise disturbing questions about the region, about our Western policies in those tragic lands, and about America's relationship with Israel."

In August 2007 Fisk expressed personal doubts about the official historical record of the September 11 attacks. In an article for The Independent, he claimed that, while the Bush administration was incapable of successfully carrying out such attacks due to its organisational incompetence: "I am increasingly troubled at the inconsistencies in the official narrative of 9/11." He proceeded to raise his concerns about a lack of aircraft debris, the melting point of steel, the collapse of World Trade Center 7, misidentified suicide-hijackers, the authenticity of correspondence attributed by the CIA to Mohamed Atta, and other familiar questions that have circulated within the 9/11 Truth Movement. He added that he does not condone the "crazed 'research' of David Icke [...] I am talking about scientific issues". Fisk had earlier addressed similar concerns in a speech at Sydney University in 2006. During the speech, Fisk said: "Partly I think because of the culture of secrecy of the White House, never have we had a White House so secret as this one. Partly because of this culture, I think suspicions are growing in the United States, not just among Berkeley guys with flowers in their hair[...] But there are a lot of things we don’t know, a lot of things we’re not going to be told[...] perhaps the plane was hit by a missile, we still don’t know."

War in Afghanistan

After the United States launched its attack on Afghanistan, Fisk was for a time transferred to Pakistan to provide coverage of that conflict. While reporting from there, he was attacked and beaten by a group of Afghan refugees fleeing heavy bombing by the United States Air Force. He was saved from this attack by another Afghan refugee. In his graphic account of his own beating, Fisk pardoned the attackers of responsibility and pointed out that their "brutality was entirely the product of others, of us—of we who had armed their struggle against the Russians and ignored their pain and laughed at their civil war and then armed and paid them again for the 'War for Civilisation' just a few miles away and then bombed their homes and ripped up their families and called them 'collateral damage.'"

Iraq

During the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Fisk was stationed in Baghdad and filed many eyewitness reports. He has criticized other journalists based in Iraq for what he calls their "hotel journalism", literally reporting from one's hotel room without interviews or first hand experience of events. His opposition to the war brought criticism from both Sunday Independent columnist and senator, Eoghan Harris, and The Guardian columnist, Simon Hoggart.

Fisk has criticised the American handling of the sectarian violence in post-invasion Iraq, and argued that the official narrative of sectarian conflict is not possible: "The real question I ask myself is: who are these people who are trying to provoke the civil war? Now the Americans will say it's Al Qaeda, it's the Sunni insurgents. It is the death squads. Many of the death squads work for the Ministry of Interior. Who runs the Ministry of Interior in Baghdad? Who pays the Ministry of the Interior? Who pays the militia men who make up the death squads? We do, the occupation authorities [...] We need to look at this story in a different light."

"Fisking"

The blogosphere term fisking originates from various American conservative blogs, which have taken particular issue with Mr. Fisk, who holds a "very skeptical view of U.S. foreign policy", and his articles and reports. Many of these bloggers have responded by reprinting his dispatches on their blogs, adding their own paragraph-by-paragraph commentary, purpotedly dissecting and debunking Fisk's facts and opinions. Irrespective of the success of their endeavor, the term "fisking" has come to denote the practice of "savaging an argument and scattering the tattered remnants to the four corners of the internet".

Books and other works

Books

Fisk has published a number of books. His 2005 work, , with its criticism of Western and Israeli approaches to the Middle East, was well-received by critics and students of international affairs, and is perhaps his best-known work.

The Point of No Return: The Strike which Broke the British in Ulster (1975). London: Times Books/Deutsch. ISBN 0-233-96682-X

In Time of War: Ireland, Ulster and the Price of Neutrality, 1939-1945 (2001). London: Gill & Macmillan. ISBN 0-7171-2411-8 — (1st ed. was 1983).

Pity the Nation: Lebanon at War (3rd ed. 2001). London: Oxford University Press; xxi, 727 pages. ISBN 0-19-280130-9 — (1st ed. was 1990).

(October 2005) London. Fourth Estate; xxvi, 1366 pages. ISBN 1-84115-007-X

The Age of the Warrior: Selected Writings (2008) London, Fourth Estate ISBN 978 0 00 727073 6

Video documentary

Fisk produced a three-part series titled From Beirut To Bosnia in 1993 which Fisk says was an attempt "to find out why an increasing number of Muslims had come to hate the West." Fisk says that The Discovery Channel did not show a repeat of the films, after initially showing them in full, due to a letter campaign launched by pro-Israel groups such as CAMERA.

Forgery misattributed to Robert Fisk

Saddam Hussein - From Birth to Martyrdom (2007). Egypt: Ibda; 272 pages. (forged authorship)

Awards

In 1991, Fisk won a Jacob's Award for his RTÉ Radio coverage of the first Gulf War. He received Amnesty International UK Press Awards in 1998 for his reports from Algeria and again in 2000 for his articles on the NATO air campaign against Yugoslavia in 1999. In 1999, Fisk won the Orwell Prize for journalism.

He has received the British Press Awards' International Journalist of the Year seven times, and twice won its "Reporter of the Year" award. In 2001, he was awarded the David Watt Prize for "outstanding contributions towards the clarification of political issues and the promotion of their greater understanding" for his investigation into the Armenian Genocide by the Turks in 1915. In 2002 he was the fourth recipient of the Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism. More recently, Fisk was awarded the 2006 Lannan Cultural Freedom Prize along with $350,000.

He was made an honorary Doctor of Laws by the University of St Andrews on June 24, 2004. The Political and Social Sciences department of Ghent University (Belgium) awarded Fisk an honorary doctorate on March 24, 2006. He was awarded an honorary doctorate by the American University of Beirut in June 2006. Trinity College Dublin awarded him a second, honorary, Doctorate in July 2008.

Fisk gave the 2005 Edward Said Memorial lecture at Adelaide University.

References

Further reading

Robert Fisk on Shakespeare and war

Man of War by Rachel Cooke of The Observer, April 13, 2008

Journalism and 'the words of power': Robert Fisk address to the fifth Al Jazeera annual forum on May 23

External links

The Independent — Robert Fisk

Collections of Fisk's global speaking engagement

Journalisted - Articles by Robert Fisk

Category:British reporters and correspondents Category:War correspondents Category:Writers on the Middle East Category:Historians of the Middle East Category:British historians Category:The Times people Category:Jacob's Award winners Category:Alumni of Lancaster University Category:People from Maidstone Category:1946 births Category:Living people Category:Alumni of Trinity College, Dublin Category:English expatriates in Lebanon

Coordinates	°′″N°′″N
Name	Roger Waters
Img alt	Roger Waters playing a bass guitar and speaking into a microphone. He has grey hair and is unshaven.
Background	solo_singer
Birth name	George Roger Waters
Born	September 06, 1943Great Bookham, Leatherhead, Surrey, United Kingdom
Instrument	Bass Guitar, vocals, guitar, synthesiser, trumpet
Genre	Progressive rock, psychedelic rock, art rock, opera
Occupation	Musician, singer-songwriter, composer, record producer
Years active	1964–present
Label	Capitol, Columbia, Sony, Harvest
Associated acts	Pink Floyd, The Bleeding Heart Band
Notable instruments	Fender Precision BassRickenbacker 4001Martin acoustic guitars

George Roger Waters (born 6 September 1943) is an English musician, singer-songwriter and composer. He was a founding member of the rock band Pink Floyd, serving as bassist and co-lead vocalist. Following the departure of bandmate Syd Barrett in 1968, Waters became the band's lyricist, principal songwriter and conceptual leader. The band subsequently achieved worldwide success in the 1970s with the concept albums The Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Were Here, Animals, and The Wall. Although Waters' primary instrument in Pink Floyd was the electric bass guitar, he also experimented with synthesisers and tape loops and played electric and acoustic guitars in recordings and in concert. Amid creative differences within the group, Waters left Pink Floyd in 1985 and began a legal battle with the remaining members over their future use of the group's name and material. The dispute was settled out of court in 1987, and nearly eighteen years passed before he performed with Pink Floyd again. It is estimated that as of 2010, the group have sold over 200 million albums worldwide, including 74.5 million units sold in the United States.

Waters' solo career has included three studio albums: The Pros and Cons of Hitchhiking (1984), Radio K.A.O.S. (1987), and Amused to Death (1992). In 1986, he contributed songs and a score to the soundtrack of the movie When the Wind Blows based on the Raymond Briggs book of the same name. In 1990, he staged one of the largest rock concerts in history, The Wall – Live in Berlin, with an estimated 200,000 people in attendance. In 1996, he was inducted into the US and UK Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Pink Floyd. He has toured extensively as a solo act since 1999 and played The Dark Side of the Moon in its entirety for his world tours of 2006–2008. In 2005, he released Ça Ira, an opera in three acts translated from Étienne Roda-Gil and his wife Nadine Delahaye's libretto based on the early French Revolution. On 2 July 2005, he reunited with Pink Floyd bandmates Nick Mason, Richard Wright, and David Gilmour for the Live 8 benefit concert, the group's only appearance with Waters since their last performance with him 24 years earlier. In 2010, he began The Wall Live, a worldwide tour that features a complete performance of The Wall. Waters has been married four times and has three children.

Early years (1943–1964)

Roger Waters was born on 6 September 1943, the younger of two boys, to Mary and Eric Fletcher Waters, in Great Bookham, Surrey. His father, the grandson of a coal miner and prominent [[Labour Party (UK)| Labour Party]] leader, was a schoolteacher, a devout Christian, a pacifist, and a Communist Party member. Fletcher was a conscientious objector who drove an ambulance during the Blitzkrieg and the first years of the Second World War. Following Fletcher's death, Mary, also a teacher, moved with her two sons to Cambridge, and raised them there.

Waters attended Morley Memorial Junior School in Cambridge, and later the Cambridgeshire High School for Boys (now Hills Road Sixth Form College) with Syd Barrett, while his future musical partner, David Gilmour, lived nearby on the city's Mill Road, and attended The Perse School. At 15 Waters was chairman of the Cambridge Youth Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (YCND), having designed its publicity poster and participated in its organisation. Though he was a keen sportsman and a highly regarded member of the high school's cricket and rugby teams, his educational experience was lacking, according to Waters, "I hated every second of it, apart from games. The regime at school was a very oppressive one ... the same kids who are susceptible to bullying by other kids are also susceptible to bullying by the teachers." Whereas Waters knew Barrett and Gilmour from his youth in Cambridge, he met future Pink Floyd founding members Nick Mason and Richard Wright in London at the Regent Street Polytechnic school of architecture,

Pink Floyd (1965–1985)

Formation and Barrett-led period

in 1970|alt=A monochrome image of Roger Waters playing bass guitar. He has shoulder-length hair, black attire, and is standing in front of a microphone.]]

By September 1963, Waters and Mason were losing interest in their studies and they moved into the lower flat of Stanhope Gardens, owned by Mike Leonard, a part-time tutor at the Regent Street Polytechnic. Waters, Mason and Wright first played music together in the autumn of 1963, in a group formed by vocalist Keith Noble and bassist Clive Metcalfe. The group usually called themselves Sigma 6, but they also used the name the Meggadeaths. and Noble's sister Sheilagh provided an occasional vocal accompaniment.

When Metcalfe and Noble left to form their own group in September 1963, the remaining members asked Barrett and guitar player Bob Klose to join. By January 1964, the group became known as The Abdabs, or The (Screaming) Abdabs. Sometime during the autumn of 1965, the Tea Set began calling itself Pink Floyd Sound, later The Pink Floyd Sound, and by early 1966, Pink Floyd.

By early 1966 Barrett was Pink Floyd's front-man, guitarist, and songwriter. He wrote or co-wrote all but one track of their debut LP The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, released in August 1967. Waters contributed the song "Take Up Thy Stethoscope and Walk" (his first sole writing credit) to the album. However, by late 1967, Barrett's deteriorating mental health and increasingly erratic behaviour, rendered him "unable or unwilling" to continue in his capacity as Pink Floyd's singer-songwriter and lead guitarist. The band's new manager Steve O'Rourke made a formal announcement about the departure of Barrett and the arrival of David Gilmour in April 1968.

In 1969, Waters married his childhood girlfriend Judy Trim; they had no children together and their marriage was dissolved in 1976. He became engaged to Lady Carolyne Christie, the niece of the Marquess of Zetland, later that same year. His marriage to Christie produced a son, Harry Waters, a musician who has played keyboards with his father's touring band since 2006, and a daughter, India Waters.

Waters-led period

, shortly after its release in 1973. (l-r) David Gilmour, Nick Mason, Dick Parry, Roger Waters.]]

Filling the void left by Barrett's departure in March 1968, Waters began to chart Pink Floyd's artistic direction. He became the principal songwriter, lyricist, and co-lead vocalist, and would remain the band's dominant creative figure until he left in 1985. He wrote the lyrics to the five Pink Floyd albums preceding his own departure, starting with The Dark Side of the Moon (1973) and ending with The Final Cut (1983), while exerting progressively more creative control over the band and its music. With lyrics written entirely by Waters, The Dark Side of the Moon is one of the most commercially successful rock albums of all time. As of 2004 it has spent 723 weeks on the Billboard 200 chart and sold over 35 million copies worldwide. It was selling over 8,000 units every week as of 2004. According to Pink Floyd biographer Glen Povey, Dark Side is the world's second best-selling album, and the United States' 21st best-selling album of all time.

Waters produced thematic ideas that became the impetus for the Pink Floyd concept albums The Dark Side of the Moon (1973), Wish You Were Here (1975), Animals (1977), and The Wall (1979)—written largely by Waters—and The Final Cut (1983)—written entirely by Waters. He referred or alluded to the cost of war and the loss of his father throughout his work, from "Corporal Clegg" (A Saucerful Of Secrets, 1968) and "Free Four" (Obscured By Clouds, 1972) to "Us and Them" from The Dark Side of the Moon, "When the Tigers Broke Free", first used in the feature film, The Wall (1982), later included with "The Fletcher Memorial Home" on The Final Cut, an album dedicated to his father. The theme and composition of The Wall was influenced by his upbringing in an English society depleted of men after the Second World War.

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The Wall was written almost entirely by Waters and is largely based on Waters' life story, and having sold over 23 million RIAA certified units in the US as of 2010, is one of the top three best-selling albums of all-time in America, according to RIAA. Pink Floyd hired Bob Ezrin to co-produce the album, and cartoonist Gerald Scarfe to illustrate the album's sleeve art. The last band performance of The Wall was on 16 June 1981, at Earls Court London, and this was Pink Floyd's last appearance with Waters until the band's brief reunion at 2 July 2005 Live 8 concert in London's Hyde Park, 24 years later.

In March 1983, the last Waters–Gilmour–Mason collaboration, The Final Cut, was released. The album was subtitled: "A requiem for the post-war dream by Roger Waters, performed by Pink Floyd". Waters is credited with writing all the lyrics as well as all the music on the album. His lyrics to the album were critical of the Conservative Party government of the day and mention Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher by name. At the time Gilmour did not have any material for the album, so he asked Waters to delay the recording until he could write some songs, but Waters refused. According to Mason, after power struggles within the band and creative arguments about the album, Gilmour's name "disappeared" from the production credits, though he retained his pay. Rolling Stone magazine gave the album five stars, with Kurt Loder calling it "a superlative achievement" and "art rock's crowning masterpiece". Loder viewed the album as "essentially a Roger Waters solo album".

Amidst creative differences within the group, Waters left Pink Floyd in 1985, and began a legal battle with the remaining band members regarding their continued use of the name and material. In December 1985 Waters "issued a statement to EMI and CBS invoking the 'Leaving Member' clause" on his contract. In October 1986, he initiated High Court proceedings to formally dissolve the Pink Floyd partnership. In his submission to the High Court he called Pink Floyd a "spent force creatively". Gilmour and Mason opposed the application and announced their intention to continue as Pink Floyd. Waters claims to have been forced to resign much like Wright some years earlier, and he decided to leave Pink Floyd based on legal considerations, stating " ... because, if I hadn't, the financial repercussions would have wiped me out completely." In December 1987, an agreement between Waters and Pink Floyd was reached. According to Mason:

"We eventually formalised a settlement with Roger. On Christmas Eve, 1987, ... David and Roger convened for a summit meeting on the houseboat [the Astoria] with Jerome Walton, David's accountant. Jerome painstakingly typed out the bones of a settlement. Essentially—although there was far more complex detail—the arrangement allowed Roger to be freed from his arrangement with Steve [O'Rourke], and David and me to continue working under the name Pink Floyd. In the end the court accepted Jerome's version as the final and binding document and duly stamped it."

Waters was released from his contractual obligation with O'Rourke, and he retained the copyrights to The Wall concept and his trademarked inflatable pig. The Gilmour-led Pink Floyd released two studio albums: A Momentary Lapse of Reason (1987), and The Division Bell (1994). As of 2006, it is estimated that Pink Floyd have sold over 200 million albums worldwide, including 74.5 million RIAA certified units sold in the US.

Solo career (1984–present)

1984–1996

Following the release of The Final Cut, Waters embarked on a solo career that produced three concept albums and a movie soundtrack. In 1984, he released his first solo album, The Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking, a project about a man's dreams across one night that dealt with Waters' feelings about his failed marriage to Judy Trim, sex, and the pros and cons of monogamy and family life versus "the call of the wild". In the end the character, Reg, chooses love and matrimony over promiscuity. The album featured guitarist Eric Clapton, jazz saxophonist David Sanborn, and artwork by Scarfe. Rolling Stone rated the album a "rock bottom" one star." Waters began touring the new album aided by Clapton, a new band, new material, and a selection of Pink Floyd favourites. Waters débuted his tour in Stockholm on 16 June 1984. Poor ticket sales plagued the tour, and some of the larger venues had to be cancelled. By his own estimate, he lost £400,000 on the tour. In March 1985, Waters went to North America to play smaller venues with the Pros and Cons Plus Some Old Pink Floyd Stuff — North America Tour 1985. The Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking, has been certified Gold by the RIAA.

In 1986, Waters contributed songs and a score to the soundtrack of the movie When the Wind Blows. His backing band featuring Paul Carrack was credited as The Bleeding Heart Band. In 1987, Waters released Radio K.A.O.S., a concept album based on a mute man named Billy from an impoverished Welsh mining town who has the ability to physically tune into radio waves in his head. Billy first learns to communicate with a radio DJ, and eventually to control the world's computers. Angry at the state of the world in which he lives, he simulates a nuclear attack. Waters followed the release with a supporting tour also in 1987.

In November 1989 the Berlin Wall fell, and in July 1990 Waters staged one of the largest rock concerts in history, The Wall – Live in Berlin, on the vacant terrain between Potsdamer Platz and the Brandenburg Gate, with an estimated 200,000 people in attendance. Leonard Cheshire asked him to do the concert to raise funds for charity. Waters' group of musicians included Joni Mitchell, Van Morrison, Cyndi Lauper, Bryan Adams, Scorpions, and Sinéad O'Connor. Waters also used an East German symphony orchestra and choir, a Soviet marching band, and a pair of helicopters from the US 7th Airborne Command and Control Squadron. Designed by Mark Fisher, the Wall was 25 metres tall and 170 metres long and was built across the set. Scarfe's inflatable puppets were recreated on an enlarged scale, and although many rock icons received invitations to the show, Gilmour, Mason, and Wright, did not. Waters released a concert double album of the performance which has been certified platinum by RIAA. It is Waters' most critically acclaimed solo recording, garnering some comparison to his previous work with Pink Floyd. Waters described the record as a, "stunning piece of work", ranking the album with Dark Side Of The Moon and The Wall as one of the best of his career. The album had one hit, the song "What God Wants, Pt. 1", which reached number 35 in the UK in September 1992 and number 5 on Billboards Mainstream Rock Tracks chart in the US. Amused to Death was certified Silver by the British Phonographic Industry. Sales of Amused to Death topped out at around one million and there was no tour in support of this album. Waters would first perform material from it seven years later during his In the Flesh tour. In 1996, Waters was inducted into the US and UK Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Pink Floyd.

1999–2004

In 1999, after a nearly 12-year hiatus from touring, and a 7-year absence from the music industry, Waters embarked on the In the Flesh Tour, performing both solo and Pink Floyd material. The tour was a financial success in the US and though Waters had booked mostly smaller venues, tickets sold so well that many of the concerts were upgraded to larger ones. The tour eventually stretched across the world and would span three years. A concert film was released on CD and DVD, named In the Flesh Live. During the tour, he played two new songs "Flickering Flame" and "Each Small Candle" as the final encore to many of the shows. His marriage to Phillips ended in 2001, and in 2004, he got engaged to filmmaker Laurie Durning. As of 2010, they are still together. In June 2002, he completed the tour with a performance in front of 70,000 people at the Glastonbury Festival of Performing Arts, playing fifteen Pink Floyd songs and five songs from his solo catalog.

In October 2005, he clarified: "I come back to the UK quite often. I didn't leave as a protest against the hunting ban; I was following a child in the wake of a divorce." After leaving Britain, he moved to Long Island in New York with his fiancé Laurie Durning. Miramax announced in mid-2004 that a production of The Wall was to appear on Broadway with Waters playing a prominent role in the creative direction. Reports stated that the musical contained not only the original tracks from The Wall, but also songs from Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Were Here and other Pink Floyd albums, as well as new material. On the night of 1 May 2004, recorded extracts from the opera, including its overture, were played on the occasion of the Welcome Europe celebrations in the accession country of Malta. Gert Hof mixed recorded excerpts from the opera into a continuous piece of music which was played as an accompaniment to a large light and fireworks display over Grand Harbour in Valletta. In July 2004, Waters released two new tracks on the Internet: "To Kill the Child", inspired by the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and "Leaving Beirut", "inspired by his travels in the Middle East as a teenager".

2005–present

In July 2005, Waters reunited with Mason, Wright, and Gilmour for what would be their final performance together at the 2005 Live 8 concert in London's Hyde Park, Pink Floyd's only appearance with Waters since their final performance of The Wall at Earls Court London 24 years earlier. They played a six-song, 23-minute set including "Speak to Me/Breathe"/"Time"/"Breathe (Reprise)", "Money", "Wish You Were Here", and "Comfortably Numb". Waters told the Associated Press that while the experience of playing with Pink Floyd again was positive, the chances of a bona fide reunion would be "slight" considering his and Gilmour's continuing musical and ideological differences. Though Waters had differing ideas about which songs they should play, he "agreed to roll over for one night only". Gilmour told the Associated Press, "The rehearsals convinced me it wasn't something I wanted to be doing a lot of. There have been all sorts of farewell moments in people's lives and careers which they have then rescinded, but I think I can fairly categorically say that there won't be a tour or an album again that I take part in. It isn't to do with animosity or anything like that. It's just that ... I've been there, I've done it." In November 2005 Pink Floyd were inducted into the UK Music Hall of Fame by Pete Townshend of The Who.

In September 2005, Waters released Ça Ira (pronounced , French for "it will be fine"; Waters added the subtitle, "There is Hope"), an opera in three acts translated from the late Étienne Roda-Gil's French libretto based on the historical subject of the French Revolution. Ça Ira was released as a double CD album, featuring baritone Bryn Terfel, soprano Ying Huang and tenor Paul Groves. Set during the early French Revolution, the original libretto was co-written in French by Roda-Gil and his wife Nadine Delahaye. Waters had began rewriting the libretto in English in 1989, and said about the composition: "I've always been a big fan of Beethoven's choral music, Berlioz and Borodin ... This is unashamedly romantic and resides in that early 19th-century tradition, because that's where my tastes lie in classical and choral music." Waters appeared on television to discuss the opera, but the interviews often focused instead on his relationship with Pink Floyd, something Waters would "take in stride", a sign Pink Floyd biographer Mark Blake believes to be, "a testament to his mellower old age or twenty years of dedicated psychotherapy".

In June 2006, Waters commenced The Dark Side of the Moon Live tour, a two-year, world spanning effort that began in Europe in June and North America in September. The first half of the show featured both Pink Floyd songs and Waters' solo material, while the second half included a complete live performance of the 1973 Pink Floyd album, The Dark Side of the Moon, the first time in over three decades that Waters had performed the album. The shows ended with an encore from the third side of The Wall. He utilised elaborate staging by concert lighting designer Marc Brickman complete with laser lights, fog machines, flame throwers, psychedelic projections, and inflatable floating puppets (Spaceman and Pig) controlled by a "handler" dressed as a butcher, and a full 360 degree quadrophonic sound system was used. Nick Mason joined Waters for The Dark Side of the Moon set and the encores on select 2006 tour dates. Waters continued touring in January 2007 in Australia and New Zealand then Asia, Europe, South America, and back to North America in June. In July 2007, he played on the American leg of the Live Earth concert, an international multi-venue concert aimed at raising awareness about global climate change, featuring the Trenton Youth Choir and his trademarked inflatable pig. Waters told David Fricke why he thinks The Wall is still relevant today:

The loss of a father is the central prop on which [The Wall] stands. As the years go by, children lose their fathers again and again, for nothing. You see it now with all these fathers, good men and true, who lost their lives and limbs in Iraq for no reason at all. I've done Bring The Boys Back Home in my encore on recent tours. It feels more relevant and poignant to be singing that song now than it did in 1979.

In 2007, Waters became a spokesman for Millennium Promise, a non-profit organisation that helps fight extreme poverty and malaria. He wrote an opinion piece for CNN in support of the topic. In March 2007, the Waters song, "Hello (I Love You)" was featured in the science fiction film The Last Mimzy. The song plays over the film's end credits. He released it as a download-only single, and described it as, "a song that captures the themes of the movie, the clash between humanity's best and worst instincts, and how a child's innocence can win the day".

Waters performed at California's Coachella Festival in April 2008 and was to be among the headlining artists performing at Live Earth 2008 in Mumbai India in December 2008. This concert was cancelled in light of the 26 November terrorist attacks in Mumbai. Waters has been outspoken about Middle Eastern politics and in June 2009, he openly opposed the Israeli separation barrier, calling it an "obscenity" that "should be torn down". In December 2009, he pledged his support to the Gaza Freedom March.

Waters confirmed the possibility of an upcoming solo album which "might be called" Heartland, and has said he has numerous songs written (some already recorded) that he intends to release when they are a complete album. In June 2010, Waters released a cover of "We Shall Overcome", a protest song derived from the refrain of a gospel hymm published by Charles Albert Tindley in 1901. Waters performed with David Gilmour at the Hoping Foundation Benefit Evening in July 2010. The four-song set included: "To Know Him Is to Love Him", which was played in early Pink Floyd sound checks, followed by; "Wish You Were Here", "Comfortably Numb", and "Another Brick in the Wall (Part Two)".

In September 2010, Waters commenced The Wall Live tour, which features a complete performance of Pink Floyd's The Wall. According to Cole Moreton of the Daily Mail, "The touring version of Pink Floyd's The Wall is one of the most ambitious and complex rock shows ever staged." It is estimated that the tour cost £37 million to stage.

Equipment and instruments

Waters' primary instrument in Pink Floyd was the electric bass guitar. He briefly played a Höfner bass but replaced it with a Rickenbacker RM-1999/4001S, Waters endorses RotoSound Jazz Bass 77 flat-wound strings. Throughout his career he has used Selmer, WEM, Hiwatt and Ashdown amplifiers, also employing delay, tremolo, chorus, panning and phaser effects in his music.

Not only a bassist and vocalist, Waters experimented with the EMS Synthi A and VCS 3 synthesisers on Pink Floyd pieces such as "On the Run", "Welcome to the Machine", and "In the Flesh?" He played electric and acoustic guitar on Pink Floyd tracks using Fender, Martin, Ovation and Washburn guitars. and acoustic guitar on several Pink Floyd recordings, such as "Pigs on the Wing 1 & 2", also from Animals, "Southampton Dock" from The Final Cut, and on "Mother" from The Wall. A Binson Echorec 2 echo effect was used on his bass-guitar track in "One Of These Days".

Discography

Music from The Body'' (with Ron Geesin) (1970)

The Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking (1984)

When the Wind Blows (various artists soundtrack) (1986)

Radio K.A.O.S. (1987)

The Wall – Live in Berlin (1990)

Amused to Death (1992)

In the Flesh – Live (2000)

(2002)

Ça Ira (2005)

Citations

References

Further reading

External links

Roger Waters Official website

Roger Waters Facebook page to support The Wall live tour 2010–2011

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